Screen time limits?

I've got a 4 yo iPad addict starting school in August (North of the border) - what do you consider an age appropriate amount of iPad/laptop/tv time to be? Do you differentiate between different screens? Different rules for term time vs holidays? What about if they use iPads at school? thanks for your views!

I don't go for outright bans but I tend to either use the screens as a way to engage with my kids - watch interesting content, have discussions on it, show them something amazing, etc. so when I'm with them when we're using it this way, I don't really set a limit. I would just use the device for long enough (until we have seen enough). If it is just letting the kids sit with the device and play on it without me being there, then I'd usually set a limit. For a 4 year old I'd say 20 minutes. Then again it's so dependent on the child isn't it? My son has never found screen time that attractive and I often do not find myself needing to set limits for him - he just comes off it himself after about 10 minutes by himself. If it's a really engaging game, maybe about half an hour to an hour and he's off again - he's not 4 now though, he's older than that. He gets bored of it quickly, just like he does with other things.

Dd2 is 3 and we got her a tablet for her birthday. It has parental controls and time limit settings on it. We set it for 1.5hours a day, but she doesn't always use that time up. Tv time isn't limited as much because she doesn't sit and watch it as much like she does her tablet.

Hi. I do not think that it is appropriate for a 4 year old kid to have his/hers own iPad. You can buy the device to have in your home for your necessaries; children in this age group don’t have necessary to have an iPad.